[crazygringo]

You're taking a distinct philosophical stance, but you're also being unnecessarily dismissive by claiming other stances "miss the point".

Math is nothing like a map -- maps are approximations of something real and they don't have any kind of internal consistency or complexity.

But there's a good argument that math is the fundamental nature of the universe, and mathematical discoveries lead to predictions of real-world behavior. While maps don't predict a thing.

The philosophical discussion isn't around whether math is useful for tracing the arc of a ball in the air, for which it always will be merely a useful approximation. It's more around math as the language of the universe, in things like quantum physics -- there's no "approximation" here, it's more the nature of reality itself.

And here, the philosophical questions around whether our descriptions of quantum physics are "invented" or "discovered" go quite deep, and necessarily involve the nature of human knowledge itself. For many people, these don't "miss the point" at all -- they're some of the deepest, most profoundly meaningful questions that exist.

[wmal]

> You're taking a distinct philosophical stance, but you're also being unnecessarily dismissive by claiming other stances "miss the point".

I read my comment again and I was surprised, as I did not intend this tone. I’m sorry for being dismissive and for generalising too much about mathematicians.

Could you elaborate or point me to a formulation of the “language of the universe” argument you mentioned that avoids mentioning quantum physics? I don’t understand quantum physics and I’d like to avoid falling for the quantum physics fallacy [1]

[1]: https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Quantum...

[crazygringo]

No worries! Just wanted to make sure you were aware of other perspectives.

And a good place in general to start is always Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mathematics

And none of this has anything to do with the "quantum physics fallacy" at all. Philosophically, it's simply an argument about the most basic physical understanding of our universe, and right now that happens to be quantum physics.

[j2kun]

> It's more around math as the language of the universe, in things like quantum physics -- there's no "approximation" here, it's more the nature of reality itself.

Why is it that everyone thinks of mathematical models of quantum mechanics as much closer to the "nature of reality" than any other mathematical model? If anything the constant disagreements between quantum mechanics and physical models at other scales should make it clear that all the models we have are wrong by virtue of incompatibility.